If you were to have asked Will Schuester earlier in his life who his soulmate was, he would have told you without a doubt, that it was his wife, Terri. He couldn't imagine anyone else sexier, more supportive, and more willing to do things for him. And he would have been speaking the truth, because Terri has done her best to keep Will close since he got the job at William McKinley and officially passed her in being successful.
Sure, they didn't expect happily ever after. Who does? Living in the after is rarely as wonderful as it seems. He graduated high school with straight As and as the captain of the Glee Club, and she was the captain of the Booster Squad, the darling of Homecoming and the couple was the envy of everyone in the school. Then, Terri never had the pinched, nervous look she wears now. She didn't snap at him every evening when she's had a bad day at Sheets and Things. Instead, she was happy to be by his side, his perfect girlfriend in his perfect high school life, and what they both failed to realize is that high school doesn't last forever.
He attended college; she couldn't afford it and had no drive, so she stayed home and made a home for them in a one-bedroom apartment just crossing to the wrong side of town. They visited their parents on Sundays and took home glass dishes of casseroles and frozen Tupperwares of stew until Terri put her foot down and started to spend time with a Julia Child cookbook. She poisoned them several times and Will almost spent the night before his second-year exams in the ER, but her cooking evened out; Will began to trust her more, and his mother's dubious casseroles became a thing of the past.
He thought he'd never want anything else. She was supportive enough for him; she would have dinner on the table when he got home from a long day of teaching, and with the promise of starting a family in the near future, he didn't think that life could get any better.
It's a cliché to say, but he readjusted that thinking when he met Emma Pillsbury. Shy, stuttering, red-haired Emma, with her brightly-coloured clothing, crazy necklaces and pins, and perfectly curled hair caught his eye immediately the first day of his fifth year at William McKinley. He noticed her nibbling on a piece of toast and peanut butter first; he noticed the can of wet wipes and the plastic gloves second.
She gave him a shy smile when he slid into the seat next to her, and he smiled back. "Hi. You're new?"
She swallowed her bite of toast, opening her mouth to answer, but it got caught in her throat and she had to take several swigs of tea before answering. When she did answer, her accent caught him off-guard.
"Gosh, I'm sorry. I'm Emma Pillsbury. Yes, I'm new." She smiled at him, a little more brightly this time. He took in her face, her bright brown eyes, her nervous smile, and snaked a hand across the table, to shake hers.
"I'm Will Schuester. Welcome to McKinley."
She looked down at his hand, then up at his face, her brow furrowing, her hand quivering a little in indecision. Then she looked him straight in the eye, pulled the glove off her right hand, and touched his, in greeting. Not quite a handshake, but as he learned later, big for Emma.
"Thank you." Her genuine tone made him smile, and he went about the rest of his day with a lighter heart.
They became friends fairly quickly. She has a good ear; her listening skills are unparalleled. It started with a bad day in Spanish class; it escalated to his hopes and dreams for his marriage, his longing for children, and his lack of self-confidence.
Some people think it's strange that he'd turn to her for advice. She's a mess herself. A severe mysophobic, she is constantly trying to scrub the messes out of her life. She cries easily; her expressions tell him without her even speaking how she feels that day. It's a flick of her eyelash, or a quiver of her lips – he just knows, without even talking to her, how she's going to react.
And yet, she always has a smile for him. She always has support. And he's gotten that he can predict her answers, but he can't predict the slight lisp of her voice, the way her Appalachian accent sounds through when she's feeling emotional. Sure, he sees her for a few hours a day, but he feels the connection more strongly than he feels it with Terri.
He starts moving away from Terri. She stops exciting him. And it's unfair, because Terri's way of dealing with things is to shut down, which doesn't prove to him that she's willing to save this. When lively dinners turn into silent fifteen-minute gobbling fests; when she locks herself in the craft room and refuses to speak to him for most of the night – he doesn't feel a push to save it. It's a guilty, heavy feeling, and Emma says nothing, but her eyes are a little brighter, a little more hopeful, when he turns more and more of his attention on her.
He starts staying later after school. He watches her hands make patterns in the air as she teaches the SAT students about the test, tells them what to expect. He watches her smile and keep order, just by her gentle expressions, without having to raise her voice at all. And the day she does raise her voice, he hears the Southern expressions that no one in Ohio understands shock the kids into sitting down and shutting up, and then he sees her sit back, shocked and proud of herself for having a spine, for being able to overcome without losing herself.
He often thinks that Emma would have made a good full-time teacher. He doesn't know why she decided to go into counselling until she tells him, one day, about spending lots of time in counselling herself, trying to overcome the mysophobia and trying to be more normal. He's aware that she puts her feelings aside to help him; he's aware, very aware, that he becomes the only one allowed to touch her.
This is wrong. He knows innately that this is wrong. And the day he comes home to come clean to Terri is the day that she tells him she's pregnant.
He spends a lot of time after that, considering his options. Because he longs to be a dad – he longs for it more than anything else. But his marriage is stagnant; he's been the product of a marriage that just doesn't work and kids don't ever save it. In fact, as he watched his mother get more alcoholic and his father withdraw more and more, he realizes that bringing in a kid at this time would be suicide.
He doesn't have the strength to pull away from the whirlwind that is Terri, though. He doesn't have the recklessness needed to walk away.
Will wonders how others must see him. He knows how Terri sees him – worthless, maybe, weak. Just smart enough to bring home a paycheque. Someone she wants to simultaneously hold onto yet push away. The father of her child, only because she doesn't feel like she's worth anything else, like anyone else would choose her to carry a child.
Emma sees things differently. When she watches his face, trying to gauge his reaction; when she laughs, her nose crinkling up, at stupid things he says – when she folds her arms under her chin; when she gazes at him with her honest, shy, sparkling brown eyes – she sees a man worth pining over.
He sometimes wishes he met Emma first. That Terri didn't have to stand in the middle – that he didn't have to hurt Terri by loving Emma.
Will's far from perfect. But in Emma's eyes, he feels like he could be.
Morally, that's what keeps him going on with this charade. He can't disappoint her – appear less than he is.
Emma's the only thing keeping him on the straight path. She's the only one that makes him feel like a hero.
And in her eyes, he feels like he can make it.